A Love Game

by Nicole Dere

  As our little play drew towards its opening night, on the small stage of the Kengui Sports Club, it became necessary for me to spend even more time away from my own home, and I became a guest of the Evans from Friday afternoon until late Sunday night. I dreaded the eruption I felt must come from Patrick. Our relationship was at crisis point. In fact, we hardly saw anything of each other, even during the working week. I still had to teach my English classes, and Patrick seemed to spend all his time up in the classroom blocks, or the sports field – anywhere that meant he wouldn’t have to spend it with me, in our little bungalow. My nerves were shredded, waiting for some violent culmination. We can’t go on like this, I kept on telling myself, until I almost wished it wouldcome. And meanwhile there was the other shattering event of my life, my shocking, passionate affair with Mags Evans. I was terrified about that too, that someone must inevitably find out about us in that incestuous little community of scandal and gossip.

  And yet it was impossible to end it; it was like a drug, an addiction. For so long, in my lonely adolescent bouts of onanism, I had imagined making love with a beautiful female form – and now the real thing, to which Mags had introduced me, was even more compelling. In the times I was away from her, I played with myself once more, even more torturously enflamed because now I knew what that real thingwas like. Ashamed as I was, I was glad that Patrick and I were so estranged that he could scarcely bear to be near me, let alone fuck me. While sweet Marty and myself went through those pale thespian shadows of sexual passion on the stage of the club, I was dampening my knickers with hunger for the resplendent figure who urged us on in our little charade. I came alive, drowned myself in the ferocity of our sex, lying sweating and fulfilled in the tangled union of our naked flesh.

  I had so much to be afraid of. Patrick accused me of having an affair, but not with Mags. How right and wrong he was. ‘That bastard Marty Dixon! Just cos everyone thinks he isn’t capable, that he’s queer as a nine bob note! Because that missus of his is dropping her knickers for anyone who’ll have her! Is that it?’ He gave a braying laugh of derision. ‘Trust you to pick the only bloke who hasn’t got a good shag in him! Though maybe that’s the attraction for you, eh? You never have been that hot for it, have you? Not the screwing part. You’re more one for all the fannying about. The kissing and the fingering, the licking and the going down! That’s always been more your style, hasn’t it?’

  As if that wasn’t enough to drive me frantic, there was the situation in Kengui to contend with. After all, my new lover had her own troubles too. She also had a husband, and one who, unlike mine, was not glad to be away from her. And yet he never seemed to provide any obstacles to our affair. We would all three head for the club for our rehearsals. Dave was helping with the scenery and props, but spent most of the evening with buddies in the bar. ‘Don’t wait for us, hon,’ Mags would tell him. ‘You head off up the hill. Marty will give Jan and me a lift. And don’t wait up, either! We’ll be late. I’ll get in with Jan anyway – we’ll probably spend half the night yattering away, you know what we’re like.’

  ‘Don’t worry, my darling!’ she told me confidently, when Marty dropped us off, and we let ourselves into the silent house. ‘He always sleeps like a log – all that booze he knocks back!’ I was torn with anxiety at first, especially when Mags reached out for me and started to remove my dress, or skirt and blouse. I would let out a muffled gasp, or whispered warning, but she would grin, scarcely lower her voice as she thrust me down across the bed in the guestroom, and continued undressing me. ‘Don’t worry, gorgeous!’ she repeated, spreading me out underneath her. ‘A fire alarm wouldn’t wake him once he’s asleep.’ I couldn’t believe her, but once we began to make love in earnest, our tongues and bodies writhing, seeking ever closer contact, ever deeper penetration, I forgot everything in that wonderful, unstoppable rise to explosive culmination. Our cries were muffled, our ecstasy smothered – I hoped. Then Mags told me something that disturbed me even more. ‘Dave knows all about me, my sweet. He’s always known ... how I feel ... what I need! He doesn’t mind.’

  I blushed, twisting on the spit of my private shame, picturing the abandon of those critical moments, the utter abandon of threshing limbs, spasming bodies, groans of satisfaction. I burned with embarrassment, made worse by Mags’s soft, gurgling chuckle. ‘It’s all fine, my love. Believe me, everything’s fine.’

  I tried hard, and still lost myself in the intensity of coming in her arms. But I couldn’t believe her. And I was right.

  Chapter Fourteen

  THE PLAY WAS A huge success in Kengui terms, probably because nobody had ever attempted any dramatic productions since the far-off bad old colonial days. The district commissioner, the chief magistrate, the mayor – all the local bigwigs of the township came along – and practically the whole of the expatriate population for miles around, with two noticeable if not notable exceptions: my husband and Marty’s wife. I wasn’t surprised at either absence. Patrick and I no longer spoke except to snarl. Well, of course he did the snarling. I just did the wincing, wounded withdrawal. I was used now to the stormy, brooding silences that enveloped us at home. I somehow endured it, and tried not to think of what lay ahead. I guess I knew that the end of the play and my absence from all such future activity would not put our relationship back on its former footing. I was frightened to admit even to myself that things between Patrick and myself could never be the same. I was even more scared to recognise that I didn’t know if I wanted them to be.

  Then there was my lesbian love affair. Again I didn’t want to look ahead, probably because there wasn’t any future to see. What did I expect? That Mags would lead me away, and we would live together in a lovers’ happy-ever-after hideaway, that I would serve her as faithfully as I had Patrick? She was married too, for God’s sake! And now that the play was no longer “the thing”, Dave was not going to put up with me continuing to take his place in bed, or rather having mad passionate sex with Mags in the room next door.

  It was all one big bloody mess. And to round it off, I wasn’t the only one whose marriage was well and truly on the rocks. My stage lover, Marty, was as deep in matrimonial mire as any of us. I felt for him, enough to shed quite a few genuine tears of sympathy and love, in a platonic way it seemed at the time, in spite of our oft time assumed passion on stage, our tonguing and clashing of teeth, and grinding of hips, etc. His beautiful, formidable wife, Clio, whom I (and everyone else) could see he worshipped with grovelling humility (that’s why I felt so close: we were so much alike in our devoted subordination) was tearing out his heartstrings with her callous playing the field. There were always tales of scandalous infidelity – “Who’s shagging who?” was a favourite topic among the bitchy females, and probably most of the blokes as well, but Clio Dixon was raising the bar towards a new world record, even for this morally lax community. Most of the dirt was rumoured, and no doubt the cleverest never even got talked about, let alone caught in the act. But Clio made no attempt to be discreet. I’m sure most of the other women secretly admired her, as well as being jealous as hell. But I was too close to Marty not to feel deeply hurt on his behalf. After all, we were two of a kind. I realised that long before our paths became inextricably entwined.

  Anton Van Reis appeared on the scene soon after we had started our theatrical venture. He strolled into the club like Paris at the court of the Spartan King Menelaus, and it was curtains for Marty’s so-called marriage. I had hoped the play would ease the pain, at least temporarily, for poor Marty, but his pain was all too obvious. It brought us closer, helped to begin cementing that unique relationship which he and I have built together. I couldn’t stop him hurting, though. Maybe if I hadtried to start a sexual attachment with him, it might have helped a little. But, as you know, I had my own troubles, and confusions. Besides, I had a hot new lover, and Mags Evans took everything I had to give.

  I wasn’t sure whether I was glad or sorry to learn that the play was not over and done with after our perfo
rmance at the club. As Mags had hoped, we were invited to take it “on tour”, ie put it on at Nguma, another upcountry town about 50 miles to the north, and then at Ndale, closer to home. That meant two more weekends away in the next month or so, and, of course, the rehearsals needed to keep us on our toes and at our peak. Part of me wanted Patrick to go berserk and drag my pants down, to give me the damned good spanking he had, on occasion, delivered in the past. But that was only part of me, and certainly not the parts adjacent to those little cheeks that would have been glowing so rosily if he haddecided to put me over his knee. They, and the rest of me come to that, were fiercely occupied and preoccupied with my consuming new love. And there was drama enough in that relationship, without our make-believe treading the boards.

  The Saturday night party at Ndale Club, after the performance which looked like being our last, was quite a wild affair. I wasn’t as drunk as most, but pissed enough for me, and in a tense mood, wondering what would happen between Patrick and me, knowing we couldn’t go on the way we were now but dreading the unforeseen changes which lay ahead. It was that desperation, as well as the wine and the G&Ts, that made me get to one side with Marty Dixon at a late stage in the celebrations and literally throw myself at him, plastering my body and my open, wet, alcohol-flavoured mouth against his. ‘I’m really going to miss you, Marty,’ I gasped when we finally broke the kiss. ‘That’s for real. It’s been so good, us being together like this.’ You bitch! I chastised myself woozily. Serve you right if he drags you out into the dark of the golf course and gives you what you’ve been missing for so long! And what’ll you do if he does? Scream blue murder or help him to get his tackle out and stuck into you?

  I suppose I knew he wouldn’t, that our genuine affection for each other would remain as it had throughout our theatrical love affair: all kiss and cuddle and knickers firmly on. Right again, Mrs Thoroughgood! And that’s all we did, held each other, and suddenly we were both weeping and clinging and consoling. We parted at last, I borrowed his handkerchief, blew my nose and dabbed at my tears, and so did he when I returned it to him. ‘I hope things work out for you,’ we told each other, and there was a new depth of intimacy between us, innocent as it was. If only we’d known how things wouldwork out ... we might as well have crept out onto the rough around the 18th green and shagged with the best and worst of them.

  As it was, my real lover was waiting for me when we came back onto the veranda. She greeted us with a vindictive sneer. ‘Christ! Don’t tell me you two have finally realised what the birds and bees get up to? Left it a bit late, haven’t you? I must say you surprise me, Marty. Didn’t know you had it in you. Whoops!’ She gave an even uglier laugh. ‘Or had it in your leading lady, I mean! She’s a sexy little cow, isn’t she? And pretty catholic in her taste!’

  I gave a cry of outrage, my face aflame. Mags was clearly very much worse the wear for drink, but it didn’t lessen my deep shame and anger. ‘Shut up!’

  ‘Go back and play with the boys, Marty,’ Mags told him dismissively. ‘Stick to what you know best, eh?’

  He hurried away, as shamefaced as I was, and I turned on her, my eyes filled with tears, and an uncharacteristic rage. ‘How dare you – talk to me – us – like that? You–’ I yelped in astonished pain as she smacked me across the face, a ringing blow with her open palm that sent me staggering, and my black hair flying wildly about my features. I burst into tears, and offered no resistance as she seized me round the waist with her right arm, clamped her left hand painfully about my bare upper arm and thrust me forcefully at a swift pace away from the lighted area of the entrance to the hall to the furthest boundary of the long veranda, which was well beyond the pools of lamplight. She pushed me down on the damp, musty cushions of an old wooden and basket-weave recliner. By now I was sobbing, spluttering as I tried to control my grief, and the spinning confusion of my emotion.

  She was sitting facing me, her behind perched on the edge of the seat along which I was stretched almost horizontally. ‘You fucking little prick tease!’ she hissed, leaning in close, so that I shrank back involuntarily against the cushion behind me. ‘You’ve been dodging me all night.’ Again came that ugly laugh. ‘Mind you, you sure picked the wrong one to sneak off into the bushes with! As I’m sure you’ve found out, it doesn’t matter how hard you tease, poor old Marty’s prick won’t stand firm – that’s if you can even find it.’

  ‘I wasn’t ... we didn’t ... we weren’t ...’ I gave up, and carried on crying, quietly this time, a forlorn, sniffing little snivel, once more wrapped in my own misery and self-pity.

  ‘You’ve been avoiding me all night, you little cunt! And we both know it’s all a sham, putting on the great big googoo eyes, seeing how many stiffies you can raise with your sexy little carry-on!’

  ‘I was thinking of us!’ I cried, hurt at the injustice of her accusations. ‘I mean, I don’t want people to think – to know – that we ...’

  ‘Are lezzes?’ she finished brutally. ‘Our big secret, eh? While you strut your stuff, doing your cockteasing act–’

  ‘Shuttup!’ I screeched, forgetting caution in the maelstrom of my emotion. ‘I don’t – I won’t let you ... I can’t see you any more. Now the play’s over–’ I gave a muted little scream as she seized me roughly by my upper arms and shook me violently, my head flying, before she flung me back onto the cushion, knocking the breath from me.

  ‘Oh no! You’re not walking out on me, sugar! And don’t pretend you want to! Here! Let me show you!’

  Suddenly she leant over me, pressed me down into the uncomfortable angle of the recliner, crushing me under her, so that I could feel the hardness of the wood between my shoulders, under my spine. Her breasts, their bronzed upper surface exposed in the cream décolleté of the flower-patterned dress she wore, pressed smotheringly against mine. Her vividly painted lips sealed my mouth, and her tongue thrust commandingly between my teeth as I opened in surrender. I felt the iron grip of her fingers on my upper thigh, pushing under the light hem of my dress, claiming familiar, conquered territory, until her nails grazed against the seam of the briefs that snugged the line of thigh and belly.

  She didn’t, as I had anticipated, try to insert her hand beneath the flimsy cover of my tiny knickers. Instead she traced the contours of my vulva, felt the curls of pubic hairs through the silk cover, then the soft swell and groove of the labia, depressing the material until the line stood out. Involuntarily, my clenched buttocks and loins relaxed, responding to those stroking, rousing fingers, the muscles of my belly pushing up as though welcoming her caresses, which indeed they were, despite my weeping protests. In fact, resistance drained from every part of me. I began to move in rhythmic obedience to her motions, my hips lifting, twisting just slightly, still in rhythm, the muscles tightening along my thighs in response, just as my vagina began to secrete the fluid which wetted and outlined the shape of the groove on the clinging silken strip.

  My head lifted, beseeching now, my mouth searching to restore the seal of her heavy passionate kiss, my arms reaching. I waited for her to strip that wet scrap of silk away from my loins, hungered for the final possessive plunge of her fingers deep into my tight funnel, and the last ecstasy of my orgasm at her conquest of that little quick and centre of my sex. But, with the fine cruelty of dominant love, she refused. Instead she left my knickers on, a soaking strip of thinness still hugging the groove of my cunt, while the strokes of the knowing fingers went on, up and down the length of my sex, until I was threshing, moaning, begging for her to relieve and release me from my wild need. It was a timeless age, of longing, of a pleasure that squeezed the tears from me as plentiful as the thicker, pungent oozing of need from the very core of me. Until, at last she brought me to the brink, then over the edge, and I climaxed, rutting now in rapid avid plunges, against her possessing touch. I came, under her hand, and collapsed, sopping wet, below and above, as I shook and wept in utter completion.

  On the Sunday, Mags drove Marty and me back from Ndale i
n her Toyota. Neither Marty nor I had our own transport, and, surprise, surprise, neither Patrick nor Clio had shown any interest in accompanying us on our trip. It was hardly likely, when they hadn’t even bothered to attend the performance on their home ground, and, naturally enough neither of us had even bothered to ask if we could “have the car” for the weekend away. Dave Evans had his own Jeep. He had the cast iron excuse of being “on duty” at the school on the Saturday evening to avoid coming himself, though it didn’t prevent him from entering the monthly mug competition on the golf course at Kengui Club, which would occupy him all of Sunday.

  Mags dropped Marty at the end of his drive when we reached home about 2 p.m. There was no sign of their car parked outside the bungalow, but Mags didn’t invite him to come across to her house. He had made virtually no attempt at conversation during the journey, sitting alone in the back, and I soon gave up squirming round from my front seat in an effort to engage him in chat, especially after Mags let her left hand fall heavily and lingeringly across my bare thigh in what seemed to me a challengingly provocative manner as she said, ‘For Christ’s sake, let the poor man nod off in peace, Jan!’

  After we had dropped off Marty, I said rather stiffly, ‘You can run me home as soon as you like. Patrick will be grumpy enough with me being away so long.’

  ‘Yeah! Missed you in his bed last night, I bet! Keen to make it up to him, I suppose? Can’t wait to get to grips, eh?’

  I coloured up. My voice quavered a little. She knew damned well just how fraught my marital relationship was. ‘Of course not. I just ... I don’t want to hang around. Dave hasn’t seen youall weekend either.’

  ‘He’ll be stuck down in the bar till all hours. Always the same after a mug. Besides, we need a bit of quality time together, you and me. I don’t count a quick fumble round your pretty knicks last night as getting our rocks off, do you?’ She drew up outside her veranda. ‘Servants are all off on their day of rest. Just me and you, baby. We’ll start off with a nice long shower, eh? I always feel a bit icky after driving.’ Her hand was on my bare leg again, then moving up the inside of my thigh to the tight little stretch of clean but slightly damp cotton over my pudenda. ‘I’ll return you to your lord and master in pristine condition, my love!’